The True Value of REALTOR® Associations

I’ve read a number of blogs this week bashing the National Association of REATORS® (NAR) along with the state and local counterparts. Many of the comments on these blogs show that REALTORS® to not understand the value of the associations and what they do to protect the industry and the general public.

Full disclosure, I serve on the Board of Directors of our local association and I’m a Sterling R PAC Major Donor.

Most importantly, NAR gives us a single voice with almost a million members behind it. Elected officials take note and do listen to our million-person voice.

While I don’t agree with everything they do, it is a bottom-up driven process with input from the local and state associations. I can’t imagine too many things that a million people would all agree on when it comes to our industry.

Want to know what happens when you lack that large voice? Ask any mortgage loan originator about the Dodd-Frank bill. Dodd-Frank drastically over-regulated their industry, put a cap on their pay, and actually cost the consumer money.

What NAR does at the national level also happens on the state and local levels.

Last Saturday, about 40 of us from the local association attended a 2013 budget meeting in one of our local cities. The city was proposing a rental registration and inspection program for single family rental homes in the city. Because our Government Affairs Committee has developed good relationships with our elected officials, we not only heard about the proposal in its early stage, we were also able to attend the meeting and voice our concerns about it. This resulted in the proposal being removed from the 2013 city budget.

Membership dues are only part of the monies needed to fuel our voice. RPAC and the state PACs need money to operate. In Texas, we ask each REALTOR® to donate $35 to the PAC. We have a state-wide donation rate of about 40 percent. Basically, 60 percent of our REALTORS® get all the benefits without donating. The other 40 percent of us carry them.

I could give you hundreds of examples of the good our associations and the PACs do for the industry and the public. If you’re part of this industry, be thankful that we have a powerful voice in our national, state, and local associations.

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You make some great points, Tom! I'll admit it, I have bashed NAR (Realtor.com) in the past. But you're right; if what you say is true in terms of NAR being a bottom up organization, then we agent and brokers on the local level need to get more involved in serving on boards and committees so that our organization doesn't lose our voice in the years to come. Just like in the mortgage industry, Realtors' income and relevance in general is under pressure from outside forces, including the likes of Zillow and Trulia, and the Internet as a whole. The game is changing as we speak people...

Im my opinion the very core of the issue is that feel good commercials trying to convince people to buy are a complete waste of time and money. People buy based on needs, based on economic circumstance,s based on wants. There isn't a single person out there who watched any commerial from NAR about how awesome owning a home is who then ran to the phone and called a realtor to buy. NAR would be better serving us by spending all of our dues dollars on maybe using that single voice to affect policy not on feel good commericals and bus tours.

Tom, I, too, support organized real estate. Disorganized real estate would seem too unsightly to me. I also disagree a lot with NAR, the latest being over complaining about appraisers. They need to look inward at the mortgage fraud, aided by Realtors at various levels, and helping banks spread out the handling of REOs.

I turned against them when they sold out Realtor.com to the same company that manages the sites of Coldwell Banker, C-21 and ERA. Then they sell us leads that they wouldn't have if we didn't upload our listings. Realtor.com should be set up to be the MLS for the nation and it would be so easy t do but not the money they are currently scr.... us out of. I would pay double the dues if they did that.

NAR hasn't done or said anything substanitive in years. They were like Tommy -- deaf, dumb and blind -- during the bubble bust. Now their ad campaigns are very condescending to renters and people who are childless, etc. While your LOCAL board may be making things better, that's great. The 40 people you mentioned compared to 1,000,000, doesn't equate well. NAR does not speak for me and my voice is no where near their crappy TV commericals and radio ads.

It was a poorly executed ad--without a doubt. I don't think for one moment NAR set out to attack renters, they wanted to tout the benefits of home ownership.

I think national advertising should stick to national issues like the flood insurance problem a few years ago. Most real estate is local and the state/local associations are better engaged to deal with them.

Despite their issues, the associations still perform their intended roles of a unified voice which is critical to the industry and private property owners.

I just read and commented on Leslie's post. I get where both of your are coming from. My issue with NAR is that they seem to lack the necessary expertise to articulate the mission statement of the organization and reinforce the brand identity. The public makes no distinction between agents and REALTORS, while at the same time they endorse a "Normal Rockwell" vision of homeownership.

Sure, they do a lot at the advocacy level but it would be nice if our dues were spent on building a strong brand image.

I think they are loosing their relevancy. Everything they have tried to do just seems to come out badly which puts a bad reflection on the rest of us. Lord knows, we don't need any more bad PR about miscalculations on sold numbers or this latest stupid faux pas with this commercial.

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